“The best way to accelerate meaningful progress in AI is to bring people together in person,” Ryan Durkin, a vice president at Whoop who works on AI efforts, said in an email. “There’s a lot of great work already happening, and real enthusiasm for connecting the dots and scaling impact.”
This year, the coalition will hold five types of in-person events: learning workshops led by people who have already produced AI apps; hands-on programming and hack day events; networking meetings for founders and other business people; product launch showcases; and community events with a focus on accessible and fun AI app building.
Governor Healey’s secretary of economic development, Eric Paley, said he has seen in his career as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist how such in-person events can help build a new industry.
“These types of community efforts can be the things that convince young entrepreneurs or young talent to stay in Massachusetts,” Paley said in an interview. “It can be the types of things that spur large-scale companies to accelerate their use of AI in ways that might define their future. … There’s a huge opportunity here to come together around this topic, AI is going to change the way we do everything just about.”
The Boston tech scene has a long history of stimulating activity with community events arising out of local universities, VC firms, and existing tech companies. The Techstars Boston accelerator got its start in 2009 in a Microsoft building in Kendall Square. And Y Combinator, another famed startup launching pad, began in the area before moving to California.
“These efforts fall into a long history here in Boston and elsewhere, of convening minds around entrepreneurship and different industry verticals,” said Andrew Zacharakis, a professor at Babson College who studies entrepreneurship. “The power of [face-to-face] connection is immense.”
The effort may be more successful at attracting certain kinds of startup founders than others, according to Thomas Eisenmann, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Why Startups Fail.
The “hacker house crowd” of young people, many still in college, with incredible technical skills will be hard to pry away from Silicon Valley, he said.
“It’s perceived as the white-hot center of the AI universe, and they want to feel that heat,” he said. “Everyone else, by contrast, will get tremendous value from events organized by the Mass AI coalition… The events will boost the number of AI startups launched in Boston, and these startups are much more likely to stay here.”
The new coalition is not focused on lobbying or trying to influence legislation, Durkin said. The state legislature has considered proposals to restrict AI, but has not adopted a comprehensive bill similar to California’s AI safety law.
The group will concentrate on “convening, learning, and collaboration,” he said. “We encourage broad participation from anyone aligned with that mission.”
🚪 Tech research firm IDC starts new chapter in downtown Boston under Genevieve Juillard. Read more from business reporter Jon Chesto.
🖥️ Paying more for a computer? Blame it on AI. Read more from tech columnist Hiawatha Bray.
❓ How AI-generated images complicated the Brown shooting investigation. Read more from Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz.
💰 Michelle Wu’s inauguration fund pulled in nearly $1.2 million from top business, sports leaders. Read more from City Hall reporter Niki Griswold.
🗳️ Former tech council leader Tom Hopcroft is running for state Senate. Read more from business reporter Jon Chesto.
🕹️ GameStop store closures hit Massachusetts. Read more from business reporter Dana Gerber.
💵 Tech-oriented private equity firm BV Investment Partners in Boston raised almost $2.5 billion for its 12th investment fund.
☁️ Cloud storage company Wasabi Technologies in Boston raised $70 million in a deal led by L2 Point Management and including Pure Storage and Fidelity Management & Research. The deal valued Wasabi at $1.8 billion.
📸 Motion capture startup Kinotek in Portland, Maine, raised $2 million in a deal led by the Maine Venture Fund.
🤝 Cybersecurity firm OneSpan in Boston is acquiring mobile app security firm Build38. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
🩺 Health care tech company Zelis in Boston acquired Rivet, which offers revenue analytics software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
🦈 Consumer tech company SharkNinja in Needham added Jason Wortendyke, managing director and head of Midwest investment banking at Cantor Fitzgerald, to its board of directors.
⚡ Energy tech company Commonwealth Fusion Systems in Devens added Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel to its board of directors.
💸 Payments tech company WEX in Portland, Maine, said Shikhar Ghosh and Jack VanWoerkom will retire from the company’s board of directors. The board will be reduced from 12 members to 10, the company said.
🔢 AI software firm OutSystems in Boston hired Fay Sien Goon as chief financial officer. Goon previously was CFO at AppFolio.
👋 Defense tech company MACOM Technology Solutions in Lowell added former Broadcom executive Bryan Ingram to its board of directors.
🔒 Cybersecurity company N-able in Burlington added Patrick Pulvermueller, founder and managing director of Redsalt GmbH, to its board of directors.
✂️ Software firm Pegasystems in Waltham said it was cutting about 100 jobs, including less than 10 in the Boston area, and primarily from its consulting business. The company also said that the Supreme Court of Virginia unanimously affirmed an earlier appeals court ruling throwing out a $2 billion trade secrets verdict against Pega.
👀 Meta Platforms. is cutting more than 1,000 jobs from its Reality Labs division, as the company pivots away from the metaverse and spends more on developing AI products.
Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards (The Verge)
The Chevrolet Bolt is back… but for how long? (ArsTechnica)
Pebble founder says his new company is ‘not a startup’ (TechCrunch)
👋 Thanks for reading. We’ll be will be back next Tuesday.
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Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
